Towards an Integrated (and Possibly Pan-European?) Prima Facie Legitimacy Test: Merging the Rechtsgut Theory, the Offensività Principle, and the Harm Principle

The Anglo-American harm principle, and its European counterparts – the legal goods theory and the offensività principle – attempt to provide an answer to the question of which conducts can be prima facie legitimately criminalised. Despite the historical, conceptual, and practical differences between these criminalisation approaches, they share important elements, particularly from a functional and operational perspective. By merging the key aspects of these theories, this work elaborates an instrument to assess the prima facie legitimacy of criminalisation – the Integrated Legitimacy Test – that embeds their essential elements and further conceptualises them. The Test strives to overcome some of the criticisms directed against the Anglo-American and European theories by narrowly defining their core elements and linking them to empirical evidence. Moreover, its transnational nature makes it suitable to feed the criminalisation debate at the European Union level.

The Concept of Social Rehabilitation and its Elements in the Transfer of Prisoners for Further Execution of a Custodial Sentence

This article analyses the origins of the aim of social rehabilitation in the transfer of prisoners for further execution of a custodial sentence, elements of social rehabilitation, and its concept, which is not explicitly defined at the European Union level. In order to deliver a more thorough analysis of social rehabilitation elements, special attention is given to the relevant Lithuanian legislation and jurisprudence regarding the elements of social rehabilitation and their assessment.

HEALTH IN EUROPE

The paper present some aspects about health in Europe taking into consideration the new pandemic context. Some indicators linked with the topic were chosen. The indicators refer to life expectancy at birth, healthy life expectancy at birth and hospital beds per hundred thousand inhabitants as health facility. The information was analysed with statistical indicators. The result shows that the first two analysed indicators have increased in the past years, year by year, except for the last one, which showed a decreasing tendency at the European Union level

Normativity in the EU’s Approach towards Disinformation

With the rapid growth of disinformation, two major steps were taken to battle the phenomenon in the online environment—first on the global level, and second on the European Union level. The first step is the Joint Declaration on Freedom of Expression and “Fake News”, Disinformation and Propaganda, which provides a general overview of possible actions to be taken to fight disinformation, and how “things should be”. The steps are connected to following human rights standards, promoting the diversity of media, and paying special attention to intermediaries and media outlets. The second one is the Code of Practice on Disinformation, which is a self-regulatory document that can be voluntarily signed by major social media platforms and advertising bodies, and its main focus is making political advertising coherent and clear, preventing the creation of fake accounts, providing users with tools to report disinformation, and promote further research. Nevertheless, based on the reports and criticism from stakeholders, the Code of Practice has not reached a common ground regarding definitions, it has provided no mechanism to access the development, and has had several other drawbacks which need additional attention and discussion. The article is devoted to identifying gaps in the Code of Practice on Disinformation based on the reports and criticism provided by the stakeholders and elaborating on possible practices to regulate the legal issues raised by disinformation on the European Union level. We use doctrinal and comparative methods in the work. The doctrinal method targets the cluster that was identified in order to analyze the Code of Practice, identifies weak spots and inconsistencies, and offers solutions from different areas of law. The comparative method was selected since in several areas of law, such as human rights and consumer protection law, the previously identified approaches will be addressed to find the best outcomes. This combination of methods allows an in-depth understanding of legal documents and identifying successful solutions, which can influence further development based on efficient examples.

Die Rechtsstellung der Mitglieder des EZB-Rates

This work traces the contours of the legal status of the members of the Governing Council of the ECB using the example of the President of the Bundesbank. The study focuses on the prerequisites and the structure of the office of the President of the Bundesbank at the national and European Union level. In addition, the legal provisions governing the appointment, dismissal, and structure of the office are analyzed, detached from the substantive activities. In addition to these technical legal issues, the impact of the independence requirement on the legal status is also focused on. As a result, the unique legal status of the President of the Bundesbank is confirmed by the fact that it is anchored in two legal systems.

Alternative forms of deposit insurance and the quest for European harmonized deposit guarantee scheme-centred special administrative regimes to handle troubled banks

Since normal corporate insolvency proceedings run by law courts and purely aimed at liquidating troubled entities are generally considered inappropriate for peculiar institutions like banks, having a special administrative regime, which provides the authorities with resolution-like tools, is of paramount importance to maintaining the stability of the system and reducing the destruction of value. Still, in order for these special administrative regimes to properly work and, thereby, for the winding up to be orderly, as provided by the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive, an active and leading role should be played by deposit guarantee schemes. Accordingly, this article advocates the adoption of special administrative regimes dedicated to troubled banks, harmonized at the European Union level and based on the interventionist role of deposit guarantee schemes, which I define as harmonized deposit guarantee scheme-centred special administrative regimes. But, from this perspective, a review of the European Union legislation, with regard to State aid provision and depositor preference, is needed to enable such schemes to properly perform their function through the so-called optional measures. And, in this regard, the article advances some reform proposals.

Listeria monocytogenes clones in Italian food products: virulence and environmental adaptation

Background Food is the main source of Listeria monocytogenes (Lm) infection. Lm is a highly heterogeneous species composed of hypervirulent and hypovirulent clones. Understanding the distribution of Lm clonal complexes (CCs) in different food categories has strong implications for risk assessment. The aim of this work was to analyse collection of Lm strains of National Reference Laboratory (NRL Lm) in order to assess link between genetic profile and matrices and the level of pathogenicity of circulating strains based on CCs. Methods NRL Lm database actually consists of 906 sequenced strains isolated in 10 years from 5 food compartments (meat, fish, dairy, vegetables and composite dishes). Epidata were analysed to remove redundant strains based on the same epidemiological description. After that, WGS data from 465 Lm strains were investigated. In silico MLST was defined and Roary 3.12.0 was used to obtain a pan-genome profile. Genes were later uploaded to Pasteur Institute platform for characterization. Results In silico MLST identified 36 CCs and 6 singleton. CC9 (23.0%), CC8 (15.3%) and CC121 (13.3%) were the prevalent CCs. In particular, CC9 was present in 35.2% of meat samples and CC8 in 25.8% of fish samples. Pan genome profile revealed high prevalence (>98%) of genes related to biofilm formation and resistance to environmental stress in CC9 strains and genes involved in tolerance to quaternary ammonium compounds in CC121 strains. Conclusions Results, in particular for meat products, confirmed in Italy, the prevalence of hypovirulent Lm strains previously observed at European Union level. The high presence of stress resistance and disinfectant tolerance genes in these strains could make them able to persist in food-production environment and should be taken into account evaluating the health hazards. In fish product is also relevant the prevalence of CC8 strains which are potentially highly pathogenic and have been responsible of recent European multi country outbreak. Key messages Pangenome of Listeria monocytogenes isolated from Italian food revealed high presence of disinfectant tolerance and stress resistance genes in meat products and virulence genes in fish products. Listeria monocytogenes CC9 and CC121 prevalence in Italian meat product confirms occurrence of hypovirulent strains detected at European Union level.

The 2019 European Parliament election in the UK

This article examines the 2019 European Parliament election in the UK. The main beneficiaries were the newly formed Brexit Party and the Liberal Democrats, both of which ran on clear Brexit platforms, while the Conservatives and Labour struggled to attract support. But the Brexit focus of the campaign – and the victory of parties with clear positions on these issues – belied the extent to which the election conformed to the expectations of second-order contest theory, with low turnout, declining support for the governing (Conservative) party, a surge in support for new and small parties, and scant discussion of European Union-level issues. While the vote shows realignment in the UK continues and can tell us much about the shifting politics of Brexit, we should be cautious inferring much from the victory of the Brexit Party and the Liberal Democrats given the second-order nature of the contest.

Connected Automated Driving: Civil Liability Regulation in the European Union

The aim of this article is to provide with the option of civil liability regulation of connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs) and autonomous vehicles (AVs) at the European Union level in the light of introduction of Connected Automated Driving (CAD) on the common market.